Stamford, Conn. — Ann Romney made her first post-Hilary Rosen campaign speech here tonight, using the controversy around the Democratic operative’s remarks as a chance to detail her own health struggles and open a window onto her life as a mom.

Before nearly 800 Connecticut GOP activists attending the annual Prescott Bush Dinner, Mrs. Romney also pitched her husband as a “fix-it” man and the right person for the fall campaign. But the wife of Mitt Romney, the presumptive Republican nominee, spent her first speech since the Rosen flap mostly telling her personal story of raising five sons, doing the grocery shopping, cooking and the laundry without much assistance, until an operation after she gave birth to the fifth boy prompted her to get a “little extra help.”

She also elaborated on the story of why her husband is running for a second time. But it was her own story on which Mrs. Romney focused and that the crowd seemed to love, giving her two standing ovations during her speech.

Without ever naming Rosen, Mrs. Romney framed her experiences at least partially around the Democratic operative’s comments that as a stay-at-home mom Romney had “never worked a day in her life.” The remarks dominated several news cycles and allowed Mitt Romney’s campaign, after months of playing defense, to try to capitalize on what President Barack Obama called “ill-advised” remarks and an opening to erase a major deficit with female voters. Mrs. Romney’s remarks about Rosen — which she described shortly afterward as a “birthday gift” at a fundraiser overheard by reporters — signal that the campaign intends to keep highlighting the issue.

And amid criticism from some that she can’t relate to the struggles of those with less means, or empathize with moms who have to both work and raise children, Mrs. Romney insisted neither is the case.

“My hats off to the men in this room too that are raising kids — I love that, and I love the fact that there are also women out there that don’t have a choice and they must go to work and they still have to raise the kids,” she said. “Thank goodness that we value those people too. And sometimes life isn’t easy for any of us.”

Mrs. Romney was more polished than she was in, say, New Hampshire earlier in the year, when she would appeal to small groups of women gathered at restaurants, as she described what women tell her on the campaign trail.

“The kindest and sweetest of all” types of things she hears, she said, are women who “tell me how much they care for me and how much they’re praying for me and I so appreciate that. And I cannot tell you how much I appreciate that because the days are long, the road is hard, the trials are there and I never know when, I have this little gray cloud that’s over my head, when it’s gonna start raining on me again.”

She added: “And I do need everyone’s prayers. But I also believe that we’re here for a purpose, and Mitt is prepared” for the presidency.

Mrs. Romney segued into discussing, as she often has, how her “extraordinary husband … stood by my side” when she was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis and later breast cancer (both are in remission) — and from there, moved on to the Rosen flap.

But her main pitch was about her life as a stay-at-home mom with lots of routine details that your average American parent would recognize. Though she said she did it mostly single-handedly, she referenced getting some help after the birth of her fifth child.

“There were days when I didn’t think I could (keep going) and there were days when I thought my only future was going to be in bed and too weak to even have any kind of a normal life, and yet [Mitt] kept encouraging me and he kept on loving me and telling me that none of those things that I actually did physically to take care of the house and the children and the bills and all the things which — some people think that I didn’t work, but you know, those were things, those were things I was (very) busy doing!” she said, as the room cut her off with applause.

She added: “As a woman you actually end up having done those things for so many years — taking care of the children, doing the laundry, doing the grocery shopping, doing the cooking — which I did, by the way. I didn’t have help for many, many years — as a matter of fact, I didn’t have any help at all until the fifth baby was born and I had emergency surgery when he was 4 months old and I was in bed and realized that I couldn’t take care of five small boys with Mitt working so hard and [I] needed a little extra help.”

“So I know what it’s like to finish the laundry and look in the basket five minutes later and it’s full again,” she said. “I know what it’s like to pull all the groceries in and see the teenagers run through and then all of the sudden all of the groceries you bought a few hours ago were gone. And I know what it’s like to get up early in the morning to get them off to school and I know what it’s like to get up in the middle of the night when they’re sick and I know what it’s like to struggle and to have those concerns that all mothers have.”

Indirectly referencing Rosen, Mrs. Romney said: “So we are grateful for the response that we got from that, and appreciative of recognizing that women have choices in life and some choices are not all the same, but that we value everyone’s choice in making their profession.”

She then put her own spin on the issue that Democrats have privately — and, in a few cases, publicly — said Rosen was trying to stress, which is that many mothers can’t afford to choose staying at home with their children and most work outside the home.

“But getting back to how Mitt treated me,” she interrupted herself, saying that her husband “would remind me all the time that my job was more important than his.”

It was one of the most expansive speeches Ann Romney has given, and it came at a time when her husband’s campaign is increasingly planning to spotlight her to soften his stiffness on the stump, and to appeal to women voters.

She recalled how hard her family found campaigning four years ago, saying of watching someone you care about on the stump: “You know that they’re being maligned at times, you know that they’re being misrepresented at times, and you know that they’re not getting (the) proper treatment at times.”

And yet, she said, “Here we go again.”

The family decided as a group that Romney should run again, she said, but unlike 2008, only she and one of her sons felt her husband should go forward. They gamed out scenarios, she said, and then she turned to her husband.

“I said I only want to know one thing and that is, Mitt, if you get the nomination … can you fix it? I need to know, is it too late?” she said. “Has America gone over the proverbial cliff and we don’t have time to turn things around. I need to know whether it’s worth all this … He said no, it’s getting late, but it’s not too late. And with that I said, that’s all I need to know … if you can fix it, you must do this.”

Whether Ann Romney will be able to help her husband close the gender gap is an open question. She is still learning how to perform on the trail — she told the crowd it doesn’t “come naturally” — and, based on her performance in Connecticut, is enjoying her turn on stage, spending more time focused on her own story than her husband’s. Most attendees said that was a good thing.

State party Chairman Jerry Labriola, who held a private event for about 50 donors with Mrs. Romney before the dinner, said the focus on Ann’s story was appealing to the larger confab.

“People were wowed by the remarks and (they) certainly stood out (as) distinct from your normal political speech with a lot of numbers and budgets,” he said. “And I think the personal remarks were taken very well by our Republican base.”

When he introduced Mrs. Romney, he referenced the Rosen controversy immediately, saying that Mrs. Romney “works very hard every day.” The line was a hit with the crowd.

The Rosen controversy, Labriola said, was also good for ticket sales, which he estimated doubled shortly after Rosen’s remarks.

The words were “specious attacks,” he said, saying the event raised about $300,000. “Thank you, Hilary.”